


all's well that ends well (to end up with you)

by epne



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blood and Injury, Drinking, Eventual Smut, F/M, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, background stormpilot, but not between Rey and Ben
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-09-05 16:55:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20276467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epne/pseuds/epne
Summary: The five times Ben proposes to Rey + the one time Rey proposes to Ben.





	1. there's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way, about you

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [Lover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvUAzpn48xA) by Taylor Swift which, full offence, is the best song that's ever been written.

_1_

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here tonight to celebrate me, myself, and I.” Poe slurs loudly from where he’s standing, teetering precariously on one arm of the couch. “Since I’ve just turned thirty-one, tonight we party like I’ve just turned twenty-one!” He nods soundly at the end of his short speech and gazes across his living room with a far-away look, taking a deep pull from the bottle of beer in his hand.

Ben does his part as the only person actually listening and gives him a somewhat lacking round of applause from where he’s sprawled out on a heavily-worn armchair. The rest of Poe’s guests are either too wasted to listen, too focused on getting there to take any notice, or just can’t hear him over the loud pounding of the bass that thumps like a heartbeat through the entire house.

“Thank you, old sport.” Poe crows, bowing with a flourish before promptly stumbling off of the couch. Somehow, landing on his feet.

“Okay?”

“Excellent! Didn’t you just hear? I’m twenty-one.” He winks before scurrying off in the direction of the kitchen. 

Ben sighs as he pushes himself up and out of his chair. He’s somewhere between way too drunk for his age on a Thursday night and not nearly drunk enough for this party. With heavy limbs he swallows down the rest of his drink before pouring out another from a stray liquor bottle on the coffee table. 

The familiar faces around Poe’s bungalow are few and far between. A sprinkling of people from their college days amongst a sea of strangers. Ben would like to think that they’re all Poe’s boyfriend’s friends to make himself feel better about his own dwindling social circle but he’s not _quite_ dense enough to have himself believe it.

The people are nice though, friendly. Ben knows he cuts an intimidating frame and he’s not sure that even he would approach himself if he were in their shoes. But they’re Poe’s friends, so of course they’re friendly, and even if they’re not they’ve been plied with enough alcohol to make them friendly irregardless. 

That’s how Ben ends up pulled into a game of flip cup which turns into a game of king's cup which leads to a determined looking girl who introduces herself as “Rose, like the Titanic,” pressuring him to a game of Jenga and then making him take three shots when he loses. Which is how he ends up drunk off of his ass. 

“You good, man?” Poe’s boyfriend claps him on the shoulder.

“Mm, good,” Ben tries to nod. His head doesn’t do much in the way of moving though, forehead pressed to the cool sliding glass door that leads out into Poe’s backyard as it is. “Good, good, good.” He says, opening his eyes. But Finn isn’t listening, he’s already having a conversation with someone else, hand still resting on Ben’s shoulder. 

Relaxing under the warm weight of Finn’s touch for a moment, Ben pulls his head back from the glass and his reflection slowly comes into focus in front of him. He’s about to introduce himself to himself because that seems like the polite thing to do but before he can something outside catches his eye. 

Rather, someone. 

Past the girl draped over one of Poe’s patio chairs, and the two guys smoking a pipe next to the firepit, stands a girl; mesmerizing in her intensity. Something about the uniquely concentrated look on her face catches Ben off guard. She stands perfectly still in the grass save for the pendulum like swinging of her arm as the light from the party casts her in a golden glow that halos the subtle lines of her body. 

Ben has to blink a few times to make sure that she’s not just an illusion borne out of his own imagination. 

But then she flicks her wrist to release the beanbag that Ben didn’t even notice she had been holding and he knows that he'd never have imagined that. The cloth flies through the air before landing inside of the pocket that acts as a beanbag target on the wooden structure set up in the grass. In an instant her expression softens and her mask of concentration falls to reveal a smile so full that Ben feels its warmth course through his body like a physical sensation. 

“I’m gonna marry that woman.” He mumbles, swaying lightly on his feet. 

“Come again?” Finn’s back to listening to him.

“That woman,” Ben nods forwards, pressing his forehead against the pane of glass once again. “I’m going to marry her.”

“Oh, yeah?” 

“Yes.”

“Good luck with that.”

“I’m gonna do it.” Ben sets his jaw, lower lip slightly jutted. He then straightens again, turning his head to look at the other man. “What’s her name?”

“Rey,” Finn looks mildly amused, but maybe that’s the way he always looks. Ben can’t quite remember.

“Rey,” he considers the name for a moment, “like the manta.” 

“Maybe don’t lead with that one, eh buddy?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, “maybe not that one…” and then, before Finn can make any sort of move to stop him, he’s sliding the patio door open and stumbling out into the biting October air. 

He takes a few steps forward, fists clenched, before pausing. He chews his lip and swipes a stray bottle of beer off of the tiled patio table—because no good introduction ever started empty handed—and then takes somewhat disjointed steps towards the girl so intent on resetting her game that she doesn’t even notice him approach. In fact, she’s so intent on her game even after it’s reset that she doesn’t notice him standing awkwardly to the side of her as she moves to start playing again. 

After a moment of standing there, when it’s clear that she’s not going to notice him on her own, Ben clears his throat. The woman jumps a little, startled. Maybe he should’ve opened with the manta line, _fucking Finn_. 

“Hi,” the greeting sounds like a question but Ben is too caught up in her accent to take proper notice. 

“Rey, right?” 

“Right,” she draws out the middle of the word, eyes flicking him up and down suspiciously. 

“Rey,” he repeats, “like the sun.” 

“Haven’t heard that one before.” She says dryly, but she also smiles, and Ben feels something in his chest loosen and melt. Definitely Rey like the sun. “And you are?”

“Ben.”

“Ah,” she pauses, raising her eyebrows, “Ben, like the big.”

It’s his turn to smile.

“Well, give it to me then.” She holds out a hand.

“I-what?”

“Your beer,” she narrows her eyes at him as if in confusion, but that doesn’t make sense because he’s the one that’s confused. “That’s why you knew who I was... and why you came over here?” 

“Right. Yes-yeah, right.” _Wrong_. 

“Well then,” she opens and closes her fingers against her palm for emphasis. 

“Right.” He offers her the unopened bottle of beer.

“Can’t say I’m surprised that Poe lost all of the bottle openers.” She mutters, shaking her head ruefully in the direction of the house as she pressed a thumb onto the bottle cap. She then bares her teeth before biting down on the edge of the metal, pulling the cap off and spitting it into the grass. And _yeah_, Ben’s going to marry her. 

“Thanks,” he says when she hands the bottle back, taking a grateful drink for emphasis. 

“No worries,” she shrugs, turning back to her game.

Captivated again by the single-minded absorption she has in her task, Ben watches her for a long moment before deciding to head back inside the house. A little bit of disappointment settles into the hollow of his chest but it seems clear to him that she doesn’t want to talk.

He’s almost halfway to the patio when she calls, “Care for a head to head?”

Ben pivots back towards her immediately, “Are you challenging me?”

“I am. But just so that you’re aware, I’m the reigning champion.” 

“Maybe,” Ben scoffs making his way once again across the yard to her, “but that’s not exactly a feat when you’re the only one playing.”

Rey shifts her weight, leaning more heavily on her back leg, before crossing her arms across her chest. “Game on.” 

It only takes a matter of minutes for Ben to lose. Spectacularly. One time, distracted by the jut of Rey’s jaw as she smiles, he forgets to release the bean bag from his grasp entirely. As drunk as he is it’s something of a miracle that he doesn’t end up hitting either one of them with any of his attempts.

“That was,” Rey laughs when the game is over, not a giggle, a full-bodied laugh. “The single worst performance I’ve ever seen in my life.” 

Ben sulks but he really can’t say much in his own defence. All of Rey’s tosses had landed without incident on target. Meanwhile all of his own tosses had landed in the grass at varying distances from the wooden board. “Stupid game.”

“So that’s what we’re going with?” Rey asks as she goes to collect the bean bags. “It’s the _game_ that’s stupid?”

“Obviously,” he says, making his way over to the target and giving it a kick. The thin wooden structure flips over immediately without protest or incident. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” Ben hastens to right the thing. He hadn’t meant to knock it over, only to make it understand how he felt, but now it’s in the grass looking more dejected than a beanbag target has any right to look and it’s all his fault. He reaches down with every intention of picking it up, but it ends up pulling him down. Throwing off his balance by leaning down, he finds himself sprawled out on his back blinking up at the clear night’s sky faster than he can keep up with. 

“Are you…?” Rey asks hesitantly when he doesn’t move. “Are you alright?” 

“Good.” Ben confirms, still making no effort to stand.

Half of the sky suddenly vanishes, Rey’s face in its place as she peers down at him; eyes shining like the stars they blot out. 

“It’s comfy.” He pats the grass beside him.

“You’re ridiculous.” 

“Yes I am.” He holds her gaze steadily, as if daring her to break it. And she does, but only to lay down in the grass next to him. 

“You’re right, Sealy has nothing on this,” she says, lifting her legs only to drop them back down on the grass with a thunk. “Oh, the little dipper!”

“Wow,” Ben turns his head to look at her, “I didn’t know I was in the presence of a real life astronomer.” 

“Shut the fuck up.” She smacks him on the chest with the back of her hand, “like you could do any better.” She leaves her hand on Ben’s chest and he can feel its warmth through the thin fabric of his shirt. He’s almost scared to breathe lest she notice and remove it. 

“Actually, I _can_ do better.” He considers the sky for a moment before pointing to a cluster of stars. “See that? It’s a bird.” Rey follows the movement of his fingertip as he outlines it for her. 

“I see it!” She says excitedly when he’s done.

“Constellation Twittarus Bird to be exact.” Ben says confidently, watching Rey’s face out of the corner of his eye. 

The name takes a moment to register and then her mouth falls open just a little. “You’re such a fucking twat.”

Ben laughs, he’s been called all manner of things in his day, but never a twat and never in a tone that makes the insult sound so much like a compliment. “Your turn.”

Rey huffs, rolling her eyes before looking back up at the stars. “Fine,” she scans the sky in contemplation before she points, “that,” she traces a shape for him to follow, mostly it just ends up looking like a blob, “is Animal Fries Major.”

“Ah,” Ben says wisely, the blob very much makes sense now. “Onion, no onion?”

“Truthfully?”

Ben prepares himself for the disappointment of her completely ruining herself for him. “Uh huh.”

“Onion,” Ben lets out a little sigh of relief, but then Rey is sitting up and crossing her legs to rest her elbows seriously on her knees and her chin on her fists. “But no fries.” 

“The fuck?” Ben jolts up from where he had been laying, that really wasn’t the disappointment he had been readying himself for. Now, not only is she ruined for him, but he’s also pretty sure that she’s a sociopath. 

“Hear me out,” she presses both of her hands to his shirt and in his drunken stupor he flops back down onto the grass without resisting even a little. “You go to In-N-Out,” she talks with her hands, “you get all of the toppings for animal fries minus the fries, _then_ you go to McDonalds and you get their fries because everyone knows that they’re the best, _then_ you head over to Shake Shak and pick up your Double Shak burger and milkshake. Eat all of it together and you have _the_ most quintessential artery clogging meal on the planet, no In-N-Out fries allowed.”

Ben blinks up at Rey in a mixture of shock and reverence, because who the fuck is this girl? And all he can think to say is: “Marry me.”

“Stick with me kid, I’ll hook you up.” She chuckles, laying back down next to him. 

As Ben invents another constellation for her, he can’t help but plan on doing just that.


	2. have i known you 20 seconds or 20 years?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me making this moodboard: it's about the _squiggles_

_2_

Ben doesn’t see Rey for a while after the night that they first meet, but when he finally does he pretends that he doesn’t. 

Anxiously early to his alma mater’s campus, Ben finds himself in line for coffee on the floor above the room he’ll be lecturing in. It’s 7:39—he had checked his watch at 7:37 when he’d arrived at the building and he’ll add an extra two minutes for the stairs—so the small cafe is decently busy; but it’s not busy enough to miss her. 

Rey sits in the corner of the room with her hair tied up in a knot and her things spread out all over the table. She worries a delicate lip between her teeth and wears the look from Poe’s back yard. The look that had drawn Ben to her in the first place. This time though, she’s staring intently at a brick-like laptop instead of a beanbag game. No matter the subject of her gaze though the look is just as captivating now as it was then and Ben has to make a conscious effort to look away. 

To keep his eyes from wandering back to her he busies himself counting the change buried alongside the lint in the corners of his pockets. 

It’s not that he wouldn’t like to go over and strike up a conversation with her, in fact, he very much would. It’s that he doubts that she would want him to. He had been pretty fucked up at Poe’s party and though he had thought they had shared something, it’s unclear if that’s true or if it was the haze of the alcohol skewing his understanding of things. Besides, he doesn’t know if she’d even remember him after all this time and he’s not brave enough to risk that kind of rejection. 

The counting of his change isn’t a wasted effort, surprisingly he has enough to pay for his coffee and a bag of pretzels from the basket at the register. Not that he really needs the food, but in his nervousness and damn-near elation at not having to fumble with his wallet to get his card out, it’s an impulse buy. 

He grabs his coffee off the counter and thanks the barista before heading with towards the door with quick steps. He almost makes it too. But then his satchel is hitting a chair, and the chair is clattering to the floor, and he’s trying to balance his drink and his bag while picking it up, and his face is burning, and he when finally rights the chair Rey’s intense gaze has shifted from her computer to his face. 

Ben doesn’t know what he’s expecting, maybe for her to look at him blankly because her head had only been turned on instinct due to the noise, maybe for her to stare disapprovingly and then get back to whatever it was she was doing, maybe for her to offer him a sympathetic yet unfamiliar smile. But she doesn’t do any of that. 

Instead, her eyes spark up in recognition when they meet his and one side of her mouth curls as she raises her eyebrows before waving him over.

“Hey!” She greets with more verve than he expects both for him and the time of day.

“Good morning,” Ben says as he approaches her “I didn’t see you there.” The words sound dull on his lips and he’s sure that Rey knows that he’s lying, but she doesn’t mention it, only knits her eyebrows together and smiles more fully.

“Is it?” She tilts her head in the direction of the now-upright chair. “A good morning?”

“Adequate morning, then.” He amends.

“Adequate morning.” Rey agrees. “Here,” she shifts a stack of papers from behind her computer and shoves them into her backpack, clearing a space for him. “Sit.”

“Thanks,” Ben nods slinging his bag across the back of the chair before sliding into it and setting the rest of his things down on the table.

“Pretzels, a bold breakfast choice.”

“Maybe I’m just a bold sort of guy.”

“Mm,” Rey takes a sip from her reusable tumbler, “I bet you are.”

The words hang in the air for a moment and Ben’s ears grow warm underneath his hair. “It takes a different sort of boldness to be doing work before eight a.m. on a Tuesday.” 

“Boldness, or desperation?” Rey glances down at her computer before her eyes snap back up to his face. “What about you then? Are you not doing work too?” She looks quickly at his bag before back to his face. “Shouldn’t you have graduated like thirty seven years ago?”

“I’m not that old.” He narrows his eyes at her, “It was thirty six years ago, actually.”

“Right, right, my apologies,” Rey nods seriously before grinning. 

“I’m guest-lecturing.”

“For what?” She looks so genuinely interested that it catches Ben off guard and his breath hitches in his throat. 

“Religion two-thirty-two.” He pauses but the class number doesn’t seem to mean anything to her, “Near Eastern mythology, I’m here to speak about the Gilgamesh Epic.”

“Ah,” Rey says, Ben can tell that she’s trying not to sound put off but the slight twitch of her eyebrows give her away. 

“Do you know what that is?”

“Nope, not gonna lie you put me right to sleep with that sentence.” And _there’s_ the reaction he thought she’d have to start off with. “Corduroy blazer,” she eyes his jacket, “I should’ve known you were a dirty arts major.” 

“And what does that make you then? Need I remind you that you’re _also_ in this building which, as far as I’m concerned, only has arts classes.”

“That makes me a math major who knows that this cafe has the cheapest drinks on campus and that they’ll take twenty-five cents off of your order if you bring your own mug.” She taps the side of her temple with a finger, “my science brain at work, baby. I’m undercover.”

“Hm,” he muses, with her bare face and baggy hoodie she does fit in with the rest of the students at the cafe, but maybe that’s more a casualty of attending college at all rather than her particular faculty. “Your computer gives you away.” He says finally, partly because it’s true but mostly just because he _can_. The device is about two inches thick and looks like it’s made of cement. Admittedly most of the arts majors he knows don’t have computers for much more than show. 

“Fooled you.” 

“Only just,” Ben takes a sip of his coffee. Privately he thinks that he’s not a very good gage for whether or not she fits in. Him being almost continually distracted by the way the early-morning sun makes her freckles glow and the way she she closes her eyes just briefly to savour the flavour of whatever’s in her cup after each time she takes a drink and all. She could have ‘STEM major’ tattooed on her forehead and he’d probably just admire it for being part of the geography of her face. “What are you working on then? Making up a proof the next generation of high school calculus-takers will want your head for?”

“You don’t ‘make up’ a proof, you write a proof, because it’s proven.” Rey rolls her eyes just a little with a smile before letting out a sigh that deflates her entire body. “Nothing as fun as that unfortunately. Actually, I’m sort of in the middle of a slow but-sure mental breakdown.” Three prominent lines appear on her forehead and Ben aches to reach across the table and smooth them out with his thumb. He keeps his hands wrapped firmly around his paper cup instead.

“Anything I can do?”

“No, and you definitely don’t want to hear me whinge about it either.”

“I do.” She could whinge, drone, or scream and Ben would still want to hear it. 

“Seriously?”

“The floor is yours.”

“I’m trying to sort out my visa stuff, but your country hates immigrants. Did you know that?”

“Pfft,” Ben blows a stream of air out of his mouth, leaning back in his chair. “America? Never.”

“Shocking, I know.” Rey cups her face with her hands, leaning forwards conspiratorially to set her elbows on the table. Her fingers fan out across her cheeks, squishing the soft skin there between them and Ben‘s teeth ache with how lovely she is. It’s not the time to be thinking about that though and he makes a conscious effort to listen to her words. “I’m trying to get permanent residency here but it’s a mess. I heard that my student visa could count towards eventually getting a green card but I didn’t really look into that until now, and apparently that was a fucking lie. To immigrate you need to have fixed the hole in the ozone layer with your bare hands, solved the global housing crisis, _and_ been literally murdered all in one day for them to even consider you.” 

She’s joking but Ben can hear the slight strain in her voice. He knows that she’s not asking him to solve the problem for her, and that there’s nothing for it anyways, but it doesn’t stop him from wishing wholeheartedly that there were. 

“Wait, you’re telling me that you _haven’t_ single handedly reversed climate change?” Ben shakes his head disapprovingly. If he can’t solve her problems the least he can do is try to make light of them with her. “Why I even waste my breath talking to someone as irrelevant as you…”

“Completely shameful.” Rey agrees before pausing. She then looks up at him through her eyelashes with a coy grin. “You don’t _happen_ to be one of those art people turned lawyers by any chance, do you?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“A _total_ waste of a degree then.” 

“Watch it.”

Rey raises her hands in mock surrender.

“Just because I’m not a _lawyer_ doesn’t mean that I don’t have a _plan_.” 

“Go on,” she looks mildly amused and that’s all of the encouragement Ben needs.

“If you want to be an American, you have to think like one.” He explains, picking the bag of pretzels up from the table and tearing it open. Rey doesn’t seem to know where he’s going with that sentence so he continues. “Cheat the system. We met back in October, so that’s four months ago, which works out to more or less sixteen weeks.” He doesn’t have to count time that’s passed since he first met Rey but he does it for effect; and so that he doesn’t look like some sort of stalker. “We turn sixteen weeks into sixteen months for the immigation officials,” he pulls a pretzel out of the bag and bites off two of the three loops so that all that’s left is the biggest one before holding it up to her. “I get down on one knee right now in front of all these witnesses, make a grand speech, we run to city hall, and there you have it. You get a green card and I get tax benefits.” 

Rey binks at him for a moment before she tilts her head to the side and laughs. “I like your innovation, but I’m _pretty_ sure that’s a felony.”

Ben waves the _almost_-circle shaped pretzel piece in front of her face. “No risk, no reward.” He’s joking but he’s also fairly sure that he’d do it if she actually agreed. 

Rey plucks the snack from between his fingers and holds it in front of her mouth, considering it with a sharp eye before she speaks. “No reward.” She pops the pretzel into her mouth.

“Your loss,” Ben shrugs taking another sip of his coffee. He catches sight of his watch in the process and straightens immediately in his chair. “Listen, it was good to see you, but I have to run.”

“Of course,” Rey straightens a little too as Ben stands and gathers his belongings. “Second years to bore, very important business.” 

Ben hooks his bag over his shoulder, a smile breaking out across his face. “You understand.”

“See you around?” 

“Hopefully,” Ben’s throat tightens at the word. It feels like more of an admission than he’s comfortable with, but then Rey smiles and the feeling goes away and even though he’s chatted so long that he’s already three minutes late for his lecture everything’s suddenly seems alright again. 

“Hey, actually,” Rey says as he’s backing away from the table, “can I grab your number? It completely slipped my mind at Poe’s.” She bites the corner of her lower lip just slightly.

Ben’s stomach drops in the best way. “Yeah, yes.”

She passes him her phone and his fingers fumble with the keyboard as he hastens to enter his contact information. 

“Thanks,” she smiles again, all teeth, as he hands her phone back, “you know, just in case I change my mind.”

“Oh, of course.” Ben nods, raising his bag of pretzels and shaking them. “Plenty more where these came from.”

“I’ll text you,” Rey laughs.

Ben gives her a little wave before he heads out of the cafe. 

He ends up being six minutes late for his lecture, but his text-tone pings just before he presses the thin wooden door to the room open and he can’t bring himself to care even a little bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started posting this literally two days before I left for a trip because I’m Big Stupid and also because Taylor Alison Swift owns my entire life and doesn’t care about my plans. So, if this actually posts, then hey from Sydney, and my hostel’s wifi is a lot better than I thought. If you need me I’ll be dancing to [Paper Rings](https://youtu.be/8zdg-pDF10g) and knocking out all seven of my roommates with my moves. Pce.


	3. my heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tags for this chapter have been updated because it includes **blood**, discussions of **cheating**, and discussions of **abuse**, so heads up in case you didn’t see that! There’s no gore and only discussions of the cheating and abuse (none actually depicted), but if that’s not something you want to read then _please_ prioritize your mental wellbeing! 
> 
> Also huge shoutout to Desiree (@sofondabooks on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/sofondabooks) & [Tumblr](https://sofondabooks.tumblr.com)) for the moodboard at the start of this chapter, seriously I can’t thank you enough for making it, I love it so much!

_3_

“Hey man,” Poe greets as he pulls the front door open. “Come in for a sec, I’ll just grab it for you.” 

“How was the trip?” Ben asks, shuffling into Finn’s cramped basement suite. He shuts the door behind him as Poe disappears down the hallway.

“Kind of incredible, you wouldn’t even believe the colour of the water there. Our seats got upgraded on the flight back too, so we actually got some sleep.” 

“That _does_ sound incredible.”

“Right?” Poe agrees with a laugh, hauling Ben’s suitcase out of the bedroom. “Thanks again for letting us borrow it.”

“Of course.” Ben waves him off. He’s grabbing the suitcase from Poe when a scream pierces the room. Startled, Ben looks at Poe, but his friend seems completely unfazed. “The fuck was that?” 

“Just Finn and Rey,” Poe shrugs. The movement is punctuated by the loud clattering of metal on metal. 

“Just Finn and Rey. Great. So glad we cleared that up.” 

“They’re having Sad Boi Hours.” Poe shrugs again, stuffing his hands in his pockets. 

“Well now it all makes perfect sense.” 

Poe rolls his eyes and beckons Ben through the small living room to look out the kitchen window. Rey and Finn stand in the patchy grass of the backyard going at what looks like the remanence of a microwave with a baseball bat and field hockey stick respectively. 

“Sad Boi Hours is their name for getting together to yell and smash shit when they’re sad. According to them it’s cheaper and more satisfying than therapy.”

Though Ben didn’t know what explanation he was expecting, he’s somehow unsurprised by this one. Based on the time he’s spent with both Rey and Finn recently he can confidently say that their antics, especially combined, are never quite conventional. 

The memory of the Memorial Day picnic that Rose had arranged and that Rey had insisted Ben attend comes to mind almost immediately. Specifically, the part where Finn had ended up concussed due to a frisbee to the back of the head from a game Rey and Finn had come up with on the spot called Ultimately Ultimate Ultimate. Which was really just contact ultimate with a nonsensical red ass style twist. Never mind the time that they’d shown up to one of Poe’s karaoke nights with stained blue skin up to the elbows because while they had refused to pay for tie dyed shirts (they were “fully capable of making them themselves, thank you very much”) they had also refused to pay for rubber gloves to protect their skin from the dye. 

Rey let’s out another yell before swinging at the hinges of the mangled microwave door. One more strike and the force of her blow sends the metal panel flying across the back yard until it hits the fence with a resounding thunk that can be heard from inside the house. 

“And they’re sad about…?”

“Oh, Rey and what’s his face broke up, he cheated on her.” 

Ben’s stomach twists at the words and he suddenly feels like smashing a microwave too. He had known that Rey had been seeing someone and that had been a bitter pill to swallow at first, but he’d been okay with it. Because, really, who the fuck was he to _not_ be okay with it? Besides, seeing the way that Rey had smiled (with just the corners of her lips but the softest of looks in her eyes) when she’d spoken of the guy had helped ease the heartache. 

Rey and Ben were friends now, _good_ friends, and as a good friend her happiness mattered deeply to him without any sort of creepy qualifiers. 

“And Finn…” Poe continues, “I think he’s just sad for her, like, sympathetically.” At that moment Finn yells, his entire body tensing, before he thwacks a solid dent into the top of the microwave. “But, you know, I’m not actually a hundred percent about that.” Poe adds quickly. “Maybe I should ask.”

“Might not be a _terrible_ idea.” Ben agrees as Finn takes another swing at the dented metal box. 

Poe and Ben watch on as the pair take turns yelling and smashing the microwave until Finn eventually throws his stick to the ground and makes his way inside.

“Gotta go find some more appliances.” He announces pushing the backdoor open, seemingly unsurprised by the audience that Ben and Poe make. “Come on Poe,” Finn grabs his boyfriend’s hand and drags him towards the front door.

“Why do I have to come?” Ben hears Poe ask quietly after Finn tells him to put his shoes on. 

Finn glances quickly at Ben before his eyes are back on his boyfriend. “Because I want you to.” He says sweetly, smiling in a way that seems vaguely threatening for reasons that Ben can’t quite place. “Take that out to Rey,” he then says to Ben, pointing to a large picture frame with a masking tape label that says ‘free’ leaning against the living room wall. “We’ll be back soon.” He tugs Poe out the front door with a wave before Ben can get a word in edgewise.

Ben only blinks at the closed door until Rey screams again. 

The sharp noise prompts him into action and he obediently picks the frame up and carries it outside. 

“Fresh meat,” he says, approaching Rey when she’s taken a break from bashing the microwave, tossing the picture frame to the ground next to the mutilated appliance. 

“Fancy a go?” Rey chest rises and falls notably as she offers him her bat. Her face is red from exertion and the hair that’s escaped her bun is suck to the sweat on her face. According to Poe’s summation she’s supposed to be sad, but she looks more like a furnace to Ben. Alight with rage that scorches her from the inside out; if he looks closely at her eyes he can almost see the white hot embers glowing behind them. 

The feeling isn’t one that’s unfamiliar to him. 

“It’s all you.”

“Come on,” Rey shakes the bat invitingly. “Join me. Please?” Her voice cracks and she clears her throat. “If you don’t I’ll feel like a lunatic.”

“You _are_ a lunatic.” 

“Rude.” Rey presses her lips firmly together, but the corners twitch upwards just a little before she has a chance to flatten them and Ben’s heart pounds a couple of beats faster in his chest. “Now you have to because you owe me.” She nudges his hand with the handle of the bat. “You know you want to.” She sing-songs. 

Ben takes notice of the painful looking raw skin around Rey’s eyes as she looks up at him and suddenly, he does want to. 

The exact reason that Rey is out here comes back to him as he grabs the bat and he seethes with anger. Picturing her ex’s face in the frame he winds up his swing a couple of times, hands flexing against the tape around the handle, before he brings the barrel down on the glass with everything he has. It shatters instantly and a large spider web splinters out from the point of impact with a satisfying crunch. 

He’s tempted to do it again, but this anger feels unhinged. 

Dangerous. 

Familiar. 

Ben swallows around his tongue and takes a step back, looking to Rey. 

“Not bad…” she eyes the broken glass. “You’re supposed to yell while you do it though, but I guess that’s my bad for not saying something before.”

“Show me how it’s done then.” Ben hands off the bat.

“It’s a very precise science,” she says seriously, “you’ll need to play close attention.”

Ben crosses his arms over his chest and nods towards the picture frame. 

Lifting her chin, Rey raises the bat over her head with both hands before letting out a guttural scream that sounds almost unnaturally torn from her chest as she brings the bat down on the glass. 

The following moments play out in slow motion for Ben.

Like the car crash he’d gotten into in when he was twenty-two, he can see exactly what’s about to happen in the split second before it does. 

On impact, the pre-broken shards of glass pop out of the frame and go flying in all directions. Before Ben can think to take a step back, or even close his eyes to brace for impact, a long triangular fragment is shooting through the air towards his face. He feels the tip of the shard hit him in the forehead before it bounces off his skull, changing trajectory, and whizzes past his right eye on its way to the ground.

“Ouch?” Ben laughs as he drags two fingers across the point where he’d been hit.

“Oh my god.” Rey’s eyes are wide, and she looks far more panicked than Ben thinks is strictly necessary. 

“It’s fine,” he draws his fingers away from his forehead and they’re streaked with blood, but he’s sure it’s nothing that a band aid won’t fix.

“_Oh my god_,” Rey repeats. The bat slips from her slackened grip. “Fuck. You need to-_fuck_!” She shakes her hands at her sides before slapping herself on the arm. “First aid, _first aid_. What do they say? You’re supposed to-you’re supposed to. _Fuck_!” She bounces on her toes and Ben just watches her with half-amused eyes as his forehead and cheek begin to throb. 

Curious as to where the hot pain lancing his cheek came from, he brings a hand up only to be met with entirely slick skin. This time when he looks down at his fingers he can’t even see his pale skin through all the red. 

Rey continues to babble to herself before suddenly announcing: “Staunch the goddamn wound you idiot!” She bolts towards the door of the house and Ben feels a trail of hot blood trickle down his neck. 

“Are you coming?” Rey shouts across the yard, before running back over to Ben.

He opens his mouth to say something, _anything_, but the coppery taste of blood as it drips onto his tongue distracts him.

“Come on!” She yells even though she’s standing directly in front of him. She doesn’t wait for him to reply this time though, just circles him and places both hands on his back to shove him towards the door.

Through the shock he’s in he manages to get the hint and heads with long strides towards the house. He presses the length of his palm up against his cheek when he gets inside to keep from bleeding all over Finn’s carpet and follows Rey blindly to the cramped bathroom. 

“Here, uh, _fuck_-sit!” Rey nudges him towards the bathtub and presses his shoulders down until his knees buckle and he finds himself sitting on the edge of the tub.

She’s quick to toss a washcloth at him from under the sink and he replaces his hand with it as she continues to rifle through Finn’s cupboards. When she finds what she’s looking for—a bright yellow first-aid kit—she dumps its contents out on the counter and it’s only then that she pauses in her panicked movements. 

“I have no idea what comes next.” She admits, looking sheepishly at Ben. “Do you think-are you going to be okay, I mean? Should I call 911?”

“I don’t know,” Ben grimaces, adjusting the washcloth against his cheek. “It doesn’t hurt that badly.” 

“Okay, okay,” Rey sucks on her lower lip as she looks at him with wide eyes before she nods once and pulls her phone out. “I’ll Google it.”

“You’ll Google ‘should I call 911?’”

She looks away from her phone to give him a flat look before she goes back to typing. “I change my mind; I’m not going to Google anything. I’ll just let your snarky-ass bleed out.” She says as she scrolls through the search results.

“You wound me.” Ben smiles briefly but it makes his cheek burn and he winces before flattening his mouth. “Literally.”

“It says here that with constant pressure a shallow cut should stop bleeding after twenty minutes.” Rey ignores his words, but Ben can see a modicum of amusement in her eyes and he tries not to feel smug about the fact that he put it there. “Is your cut shallow?” 

“How would I know?”

“Let me take a look.” She slides her phone back into her pocket and drops to her knees in front of him. Even though he’s sitting down Rey is short enough to have to look up at him through her eyelashes as she wraps her hand around his wrist and tugs the washcloth away from his face.

Ben tries to keep a level-head but the sight of her on her _knees_ in front of him is almost too much to handle. The blood that’s not pouring out of his face rushes towards his cock and he tries desperately to think about un-sexy things as she looks up at him earnestly with slightly parted lips. Things like shark attacks, and filing his taxes, and the prospect of bleeding to death in Finn’s floral wallpapered bathroom with a semi. 

“I think it looks shallow?” Rey knits her eyebrows together in concern and three creases appear on the skin between them. It’s a look that, over time, Ben has grown more attached to than he would like to admit. It’s also a look that he knows is reserved for when she’s worried about something. Really worried. 

A part of Ben is worried about her worry—and bleeding out as a consequence of it. But a larger part of him is wonderstruck that she’s even this worried about him at all.

“Your confidence is inspiring.” 

“It’s shallow.” She says decisively before guiding the hand holding the washcloth back up to the cut on his face. “Twenty minutes. I’ll set a timer.”

“You know that if I die it’ll all be your fault.” Ben says conversationally as Rey pulls her phone out and sets an alarm. 

“Shut up.” She retorts, setting her phone down next to the upturned first aid kit supplies.

“Your bedside manner could use a little work.”

Rey rolls her eyes and shoves his shoulders playfully. She’s a lot stronger than she looks though and the action throws Ben’s balance and sends him sliding off the edge of the bathtub. His ass lands with a thunk inside of it and his legs hang over the edge. He leans his head back against the tiled wall to look up at Rey from his new position.

“A _lot_ of work.”

“On my god, are you okay?” The panicked look is back on her face.

“Fine,” Ben waves her off with his free hand. 

Rey sighs, shaking her head. “I am sorry, you know, about all of it, all of,” she circles her hand broadly in front of his face, “_that_.”

“You mean you didn’t wake up this morning with the sole intention of carving up my face? And here I was starting to feel special…”

Rey laughs a little but it’s not her full laugh. The one that makes the skin around her eyes crinkle and has her cheeks pressing upwards until her eyes go squinty. The one that Ben is trying to coax out of her pretty much anytime he opens his mouth. 

“Really, it’s fine.”

“That towel says otherwise.” Rey shakes her head as her eyes trace the bloody washcloth with another sigh. “Just,” she closes her eyes for a moment, “accept the apology and let me feel bad about it. It’s not fine.”

“Okay then,” Ben eyes her stricken face carefully. “I accept your apology.”

“Thank you.” Rey takes a small step towards the bathtub and then another before she settles herself inside of it next to him. 

She bends her knees to hang them over the side of the metal tub in the same fashion his are and the length of the right side of her body presses up against his left. Ben’s grip on the washcloth slackens a little at the feeling of the warm press of her body and he has to make a conscious effort to hold it firmly to his face. And to breathe. Breathing is important too.

“I just, I always manage to hurt the people around me.”

“I think that’s human nature.”

“Mm,” Rey hums noncommittally. 

“I mean you’re not going to hurt the people who aren’t around you unless you’re a war criminal or, like, someone who outsources to sweatshops.”

“_Ben_.” She says his name like a warning and he closes his mouth as a silence blankets the small room.

“Poe told me.” Ben says gently after a moment, “about why… why you and Finn were having Sad Boi Hours.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” They don’t look at each other, just stare straight ahead. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry for anything.” Rey says. “It wasn’t you and it’s,” she lets out a prolonged exhale. “It’s my fault anyways-”

“Rey,” Ben interjects immediately, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “No, it’s not.”

Rey tilts her head back to rest the top of it against the wall behind them and exhales loudly through her nose. “You don’t understand. It's not the first time I've been cheated on, not even close to the first time actually." She blinks back tears and Ben's heart shatters for her like the glass in the picture frame had at his own hand. "But I pick them, these people. I’m not, I’m not _good_ Ben. Not like you, not the way you think I am. It’s just karma.” She pauses. “First they cheat _with_ me, then they cheat _on_ me.”

The admission takes Ben by surprise and he’s not sure what the right thing to say here is. So, he goes with the wrong thing. “That’s not how karma works. It manifests in your next life.”

“Really?”

“Uh huh.”

“_So_ not the point.”

“Yeah.” 

They sit in silence for another long moment and Ben shifts the washcloth against his face.

“Have you talked to anyone about it? I mean, why you do it?” He asks eventually.

“I’m talking to you right now, aren’t I? Besides,” she continues before he can rebuke the question, “I know why I do it, I don’t need to pay anyone to tell me.”

Ben doesn’t say anything, only continues to watch her face out of the corner of his eye while he waits for her to continue. 

“I want someone to pick me, to make the conscious decision to choose me. Above their current partners, above everything. And I know it’s not. I mean, obviously it’s fucked up and unhealthy and wrong but knowing all of that doesn’t seem to stop me.” Rey talks with her hands and Ben watches them as they twist and emote over her lap. “And I know these aren’t good people. They’re not people who will change for me, or people who even want to change at all, but there’s always a part of me that _hopes_. That maybe I’m worth something, worth choosing, worth changing for.” Her hands fall into her lap. “It’s the childhood trauma, you know?” She tries to joke but the words only sound more heartbreaking that way. 

“I know.” It’s almost horrifying how much he does.

“You do?” She turns her head to look at him and she must see something in his face because she says: “_Ah_, you do.”

“I know the feeling of never being chosen. I went looking for someone to choose me in other places. But I know the feeling.” He pauses, waits for Rey to say something else, but she doesn’t, only continues to examine his face. 

The hand that’s not staunching his wound is gripped tightly around his left knee. This isn’t something he’s talked about in years and the words don’t come easy, but he thinks that they might be useful to Rey so, for her sake, he pushes them past his unwilling lips. 

“My parents never had time for me growing up. They weren’t neglectful or abusive or anything, just busy. But they should never have been parents. My mother was always occupied with work and my father found any excuse to be away from home. Neither of them were cut out for a life of domesticity but they forced themselves to try and play the parts anyways. So, I really understand that feeling. The wanting someone to choose you thing. The always feeling half-transparent and never quite all-there.” The veins on the back of Ben’s hand strain underneath his skin with how tightly he’s holding his leg. “When I was twelve I started fencing. And it was good. _Really_ good. There weren’t many other kids doing it, so my coach always had time for me.” He swallows back the bile he can feel rising at the back of his throat. “I thought it-it really felt like, I felt seen for the first time in my life. He was always there for me. Always had time for me when my parents didn’t.” Ben’s eyes focus on the soap dispenser by the sink. “I ended up spending a lot of time with him. I _liked_ him.” He spits the words. “But then practices became longer, and massages from him became mandatory, and he started taking me on overnight trips to competitions…”

“You don’t have to.” Rey whispers, when he trails off. 

“No, I do.” Ben shakes his head. “Because the point is that I’ve recovered from it, and you can too. If that’s something that you want.” He sighs and gives his own knee a squeeze. “So he… took advantage. And it messed me up. Really messed me up. For a long time too. I wasn’t close to my parents and he knew that, I felt completely alone. More alone than before. And I got angry. Really, _really_ angry.” He closes his eyes, breathing deeply through his nose and he feels Rey’s shoulder shift against his bicep.

“This angry?” When he opens his eyes Rey’s face is directly in front of his, closer than it’s ever been before. She’s propped up on one arm, twisted so that she can lean over him and she ghosts two fingers over the hand holding the bloody washcloth. 

Ben’s breath catches in his throat and gooseflesh breaks out across both of his arms at her gentle barely-there touch. She’s close enough that he can see a light brown freckle on her bottom lip that he’s never noticed before and her hazel eyes hold so much tenderness in them that he thinks he’ll cry if he looks at them for too long. 

It takes a couple of long moments for him to remember that she had asked him a question and then a couple more before he’s able to formulate a response.

“Angrier,” he says hoarsely as his eyes sweep over the expanse of her face. Unclenching his hand from around his leg he reaches up with a gentle thumb and brushes a stray eyelash off the top of one of her cheekbones. She exhales sharply through her nose and Ben feels the warm puff of air against his hand. “Eyelash.”

“Oh,” her fingers stroke the back of his hand once more before she pulls away and settles herself back down in the bathtub. “Angrier?”

“A lot angrier.” Ben sets his hand back down on his thigh. “And it was a constant anger. I was just about the biggest asshole you can imagine. I quit fencing to get away from him at eighteen, and by then I had quit just about everything else in my life too.” He turns his head to look at her. “Trust me, if you had met me ten years ago you wouldn’t have spared me the time of day and I wouldn’t blame you. I was angry and I was reckless and then one night I picked my father up from the airport and skipped a red light. We got sideswiped by sixteen-wheeler and my father almost died. That was the wake-up call, if you want to call it that, the realization that I couldn’t keep living the way I had been. That, like it or not, my own self-destructive tendencies had consequences for other people. It took therapy, a lot of it at first, but I made it out of the woods. It’s not always easy and sometimes I still spiral, but on the whole, I’ve recovered.”

The only sound in the bathroom is that of their breathing until Rey speaks. “You didn’t deserve that. Any of that.” She lifts her right hand from her lap and hooks her little finger around Ben’s pinky. Now both of their hands rest against his thigh. “I-mine was different I guess.”

“You don’t have to talk about it.”

“No, I want to. It’s just not easy for me to pinpoint exact moments and events like you did.” She tilts her head up to look at the ceiling again. “My dad walked out on my mum when I was younger than I can remember and then when I was six my mum left me.” Her voice cracks and Ben’s heart does too. “She left me with a friend and after a few weeks he turned me over to social services. I think the cruelest part of it all was that she told me she’d be back for me. And I… I waited.” Ben watches her face carefully as Rey chuckles. Her eyes brim with tears. “I waited for _years_. I worried too. With every new foster family _I_ worried about _her_. That she wouldn’t be able to find me if she wanted to. But she didn’t want to. Never wanted to. I found that out later.” He tracks the movement of her neck as she swallows. “I was always just a government paycheck to my foster families. No one actually wanted me, but that never bothered me much. Once both of my parents had left the damage was done.” She squeezes her pinky around Ben’s tightly for a moment before loosening it again. Ben presses his arm more solidly against hers. Just so that she can feel it. Just so that she knows he’s there. “Some of the families I was with were fine and some of them were awful, regardless none of them ever _chose_ me. No one ever _really_ wanted me, and I think the amalgamation of everything together just…”

“Fucked you up?”

“Fucked me _right_ up.” She shakes her head with a sad smile. “I know it doesn’t excuse the things I’ve done, actually it might even make them worse, but it just feels kind of inescapable.”

Ben considers his next words carefully before he speaks. “You’re right, it doesn’t absolve you; but it doesn’t damn you either. It’s not inescapable if you don’t want it to be.”

“And that comes...?” Rey raises her eyebrows glancing over at him with an amused look.

“Pretty much straight from my therapist.” Ben nods. “Smashing things is a good release, but it doesn’t replace professional help.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Okay.”

“Okay I’ve thought about it.” Rey says after a short pause. “What if you just tell me verbatim absolutely everything you’ve ever learned over the years and I reproduce all of your emotional intelligence that way?”

Ben huffs a little laugh. “And what would I get out of the deal?”

“An endless supply of waffle-iron cinnamon buns and quality time with the world’s greatest macarena dancer, babe. _Obviously_.”

“_Obviously_,” he mimics her tone, “sorry for the stupid question.” 

“Apology accepted.” Rey grins. Her eyes go squinty with it and the parts of Ben’s heart that have broken for her over the course of the afternoon start their slow mend. 

A comfortable silence settles over them and when Rey tilts her head back against the wall again Ben finds himself doing the same. He closes his eyes and tries to ignore the pulsing pain coming from the skin of his face as he luxuriates in the simple feeling of Rey’s pinky wrapped securely around his own. 

Their breathing syncs up as Ben relaxes and a calm comes over him. It’s an unfamiliar one too. Usually after he opens up to someone about his past he scrambles to eat his words. To pull them back out of thin air and shove them down his throat as fast as he can. 

There’s no impulse to do that this time. No manic need to protect the weakness he’d just shown.

It might be a product of time. Or all the work he’s done with his therapist. But he has a feeling it has more to do with Rey. 

He hopes, prays, and wishes desperately on the eyelash he’d dusted from her cheek that she feels something of the same comfort.

“Sometimes I think I was set up to be this way from the start.” Rey says suddenly.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I didn’t even get a chance, right? My dumb fucking parents really had to go and name me Rey Jakku? What does Rey mean? What’s a Rey? And Jakku, have you ever met anyone else with that last name? Because I sure as fuck haven’t.” By the way the words burst forwards, in one great rush, it’s obvious to Ben that this is something she’s been thinking about for a while.

“What would you name yourself then, if you could?” He asks as he opens his eyes to stare at the ceiling.

“I don’t know… Harriet, Faith, Jane maybe. Smith, Lee, Anderson.”

“You’d name yourself _Harriet Smith_?” Ben can’t hide his surprise. There’s nothing technically wrong with the name except that every name that isn’t Rey Jakku sounds wrong. 

“No. I don’t know…” She repeats, “I just wish I had a name that meant something to someone. One that had some sort of history. One that meant I had people. That I wasn’t just Rey no-middle-name Jakku, no one, nothing.”

Ben wants to tell her what her name means to him. That it means the ever present smell of her coconut and papaya shampoo, that it means unembarrassed enjoyment of the things that she loves, that it means midnight trips to 7/11 for extra-large slurpees when neither of them can sleep, that it means never feeling left out at any event because she always seems to know exactly how to include everyone, that it means a magnetic force of a woman like no one he’s ever met before and no one he ever will again. 

He wants to tell her all of that and more, but he knows that’s not what she needs right now. 

“You’re not _nothing_. Not to me.” He turns his head to face her. “Not to Finn, to Poe, Rose, everyone else who knows you.” What she needs is to be reminded that she _does_ have people. He shakes his head and tightens his jaw. “Know that.”

“I do…” Ben narrows his eyes at her. “No really, I _do_. I just, never mind, you wouldn’t get it _Benjamin Organa Solo_.” She tightens her voice around his name as if using it as evidence. 

“As someone who belongs to a lot of people, I can tell you that it’s not that great.”

“Go on, Benjamin Organa Solo.”

“Benjamin Breha Amidala Skywalker Organa Solo.” He corrects. 

“What the fuck?” Rey chortles a surprised laugh that makes her nose crinkle and Ben’s heart stutter.

“All family names too. Like I said, I belong to a lot of people. I’ve got people _on_ people. And it’s not nearly as reassuring as you make it out to be.”

“Explain.” 

“Well, mostly it’s just being confused at family functions. Which, _yes_, have a lot of excellent free food and I _will_ invite you to during the holiday season so, _shush_.” Ben says quickly before Rey can interrupt. She closes her already-open mouth. “But there’s also a lot of pressure. Try impressing six namesakes at once, never mind impressing them actually, try satisfying them.”

“You can’t?” Rey asks not unkindly. 

“Not a chance. Every single one of them is disappointed in me in some way. It would take all day to go through even half of their combined accolades, but let’s just say that they had higher expectations for me than being a curator.”

“But you… you’re happy with that, I know you are. You love your job.” 

“I do.” Ben wonders how Rey knows that, he’s never said it overtly to anyone before. “And that makes it a little better, but their disappointment still isn’t easy. I was supposed to be something important, a doctor, a lawyer, a purple heart recipient, a Nobel peace prize winner. Not an average Joe with a theology degree and nothing particularly special going for them.”

“I’m sorry,” Rey says in a voice thick with emotion. “I know that I’ve taken shots at you for that before.”

That Rey doesn’t think she’s a good person is astounding. She has to be the single most empathetic person that Ben has ever met in his life.

He shakes his head, “That was always all in good fun and you know it.”

“Still, if it hurt you even a little then I am. Sorry.” 

Ben clears his throat to press down the sudden emotion that rises to the back of his tongue at her words. “You could always make it up to me by lightening the load.” He raises his eyebrows jovially. 

“How so?” Rey asks, frowning seriously.

“You marry me, and I transfer an even half of my names to you. It would solve both of our problems.”

“Oh, is _that_ how taking someone’s name in marriage works?”

“I’m pretty sure it is, yeah.”

“More’s the pity for the people like me with no middle names then.”

“Nah, you guys just have to find people with plentiful names. Like me. See, we’re perfectly matched for this.”

Rey looks at him for a long moment. “You’re an odd duck Benjamin Breha Amidala Skywalker Organa Solo.” 

Ben blinks in surprise at the fact that she remembered each of his names. 

“I wouldn’t even cheat on you.” He adds, kicking himself as soon as the words are out of his mouth. 

“And they say romance is dead.” Rey doesn’t seem to mind the poor excuse for a joke. “I am meant to be changing my ways.” She eyes him appraisingly before her hazel eyes snap back to meet his gaze. “How would I _know_ you wouldn’t though?”

“Well,” Ben considers as if this is a serious conversation. “No one’s interested in me for one, and you would have permission to cut me if I did for two.” _And I could never do that to you for three_. He turns his head slightly so that the blood-soaked washcloth is on better display for her.

“Not an awful proposition.” Rey tilts her head to the side. “Except for the fact that people _do_ want you.”

“Right,” Ben laughs, shaking his head. “My near perpetual single status begs to differ.”

“I know them.” Rey says quickly, giving the words time to hang in the air before she speaks again. “One person in particular.” She squeezes her pinky tightly around Ben’s for what probably amounts to less than a second but feels like an eternity before she loosens it again with a shy smile. 

Ben’s head spins with the implication that-

The alarm on her phone sounds from the counter.

Rey pulls her hand away from his with a start at the noise and Ben’s little finger immediately feels cold without the warmth of hers wrapped around it. Before he has time to really think about that though she’s leaning over him to wrap gentle fingers around the skin of his wrist. She pulls the hand holding the washcloth away from his face and Ben’s eyes find that freckle on her lip again. 

“Ben?” She whispers, his eyes flick from her lips to her wide eyes. He’s so focused on her that he _almost_ misses the sensation of hot blood trickling down the side of his face. “I don’t think that your cut is shallow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was brought to you in part by [The Good Parts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wk8ZRgXQnY) by Andy Grammer and [I Wish](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEEml90vQ1s) by Hayley Kiyoko. 
> 
> Also I have a Twitter now so you can hit me up there if you want to [@epne_](https://twitter.com/epne_). Do I know how to use it? No. Am I trying my best every single day to learn how to use it? Also no. But I’d love to connect or whatever.


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